Configuration

February 1st, 2007

Using the BlixKrieg Theme

First things first 🙂 :-

1. Do you want ads on your site? If not, read no further – all you need to do is open the adsense.php file, and add a ‘#’ in front of the line that says ‘define(AdsenseOn,1)’ (about three lines down) or just delete that line altogether.
2. You need to change the $GoogleADID variable in the adsense.php file to reflect your own adsense ID. If you don’t, the default is my adsense ID, and I’ll make cash from your traffic – I don’t mind, but that’s not my intention.
3. Please don’t remove or modify any of the footer links – I link back to wordpress, the original author of the Blix Theme (Sebastien Schmieg) and (my sponsor) utheguru there – it’s only fair we get credit for our work, and it’s not only ethically wrong (considering the theme is made available free on the basis of acknowledgement), but also a violation of the principles of the GPL if you remove these links.

Ok… how to use it.. well, as I said, it’s heavily based upon the Blix theme, so anyone who has used Blix will be pretty familliar, but anyway, here goes – if you don’t understand a step, just come and blog me at http://www.utheguru.com

Step 1:- Unzip BlixKrieg in the right place – how? not difficult.. If you have command line access (eg linux ssh) place the BlixKrieg.zip (or BlixKrieg.tgz) file in your themes directory (usually in wordpressroot/WP-content/themes/) and unzip it – in linux, you just type ‘unzip BlixKrieg.zip’ in a command line, and it will create a folder called BlixKrieg-Adsense in your themes directory. Alternatively, if you use a hosted system like C-Panel, you can unzip the file on your windows PC, and transfer the resultant directory BlixKrieg-Adsense over to your themes folder using FTP.

Step 2:- Get it working.. Go to your admin control panel, go to the presentaton menu, click on themes, then click on the ‘BlixKrieg with Adsense’ theme which should now be there – you should now get a message saying your theme has been changed. Right – check it out? You got ads? all look ok? now on to the customisation..

Step 3:- Customisation Really, some of this stuff is a bit more advanced than what many of you will need to do, so I’ll just start with the basics –

Basic Customisation

• In the themes folder, open the BlixKrieg folder, and then open adsense.php
• a few lines down i’ve commented “put your google adsense ID here..” – the line says $GoogleADID = “pub-1310268436182119” – you need to replace pub-1310268436182119 with your adsense ID. If you need to join adsense, or you don’t know how to find your adsense ID, no probs – just come to my blog at http://blog.utheguru.com/blixkrieg-a-new-wordpress-theme-with-google-adsense/ and I’ll explain it more.
• another few lines down, you have $GoogleAdChan = “9858673772”; – change the 9858673772 to your custom channel ID (again, see my blog for more details). If you don’t know what this is, just change “9858673772” to “”, or even just leave it.
• The next little section is all about colours etc – you shouldn’t need to change these because they are already blended with the theme, but if you do need to change them, that’s where you do it. the lines I’m talking about are something like this:- $Googleborder = “A3C159”; $Googlebg = “FFFFFF”; $Googlelink = “000000”; $Googleurl = “FEC42D”; $Googletext = “000000”; Ok, the rest of the stuff in the adsense.php file is for us guru’s… you can change the shape, size, format etc of each and every one of the ads on the site.. I think there is like 12 different ad units.. If that scares you, read no further, and make sure you come along to my blog and say hi!

Advanced Customisation

Ok everyone – so – you want to change my defaults and have different sized ads.. for instance, you don’t want a 120×600 text tower in the Right Hand toolbar, you want a 200×200 image ad –

NO WORRIES! Easy Done..

Here is how.. – this is directly out of the adsense.php file…

/*****************************************************

** each adunit can be set by changing the numbers after it. 

** The two number seperated by a comma represent the style 

** and whether you want the ad displayes as image, text or 

** no preference respectively. The codes are below… **
********************************************************

/*************************************************
** The first number represents the type of ad **
** you wish to have.. the codes are:- **
** **
** 1 = Leaderboard(728×90) **
** 2 = Banner (468×60) **
** 3 = Button (125×125) **
** 4 = Half Banner (234×60) **
** 5 = Skyscraper (120×600) **
** 6 = Wide Skyscraper (160×600) **
** 7 = Small Rectangle (180×150) **
** 8 = Vertical Banner (120×240) **
** 9 = Medium Rectangle (300×250) **
** 10 = Square (250 x 250) **
** 11 = Large Rectangle (336×280) **
** 12 = Small Square (200×200) **
*************************************************/

/******************************************

** The second number represents how **
** you want the add displayed **
** 0=image only **
** 1 = Text Only **
** 2 = Don’t Care (this is the default **
********************************************/

// Footer = the ad at the bottom of the page, sidebar = the ad in the right hand
// navigation pane, and Indent = the ad in the middle of the post.

// Front = main (index) page of the site..
$FrontFooterFormat = array(2,2); //eg, 2,0 represents 2=Banner 468×60, 0=Display as image.
$FrontSidebarFormat = array(5,0);
$FrontIndentFormat = array(5,2);

// Static are non-blog pages on the site – like, for instance, the about page.
$StaticIndentFormat = array(10,2);
$StaticFooterFormat = array(2,0);
$StaticSidebarFormat = array(6,2);

// Blog are what you see when you actually click on an individual blog topic –
// like http://blog.utheguru.com/blixkrieg-a-new-wordpress-theme-with-google-adsense/
$BlogIndentFormat = array(5,2);
$BlogFooterFormat = array(2,2); //this first footer pops in between post and comments.
$BlogFooterFormat2 = array(2,0); //this second footer is for posts with no comments.
$BlogSidebarFormat = array(5,0);

// Archive – Last months posts..
$ArchiveSidebarFormat = array(7,2);
$ArchiveFooterFormat = array(2,2);

// Error – when user tries to go to a page that doesn’t exist
$ErrorFooterFormat = array(2,2);

// Search – when user gets search results.
$SearchFooterFormat = array(2,2);

YOU CAN CHANGE THESE NUMBERS AS MUCH AS YOU LIKE – YOU WON’T BREAK ANYTHING.

_________________
Ok –

CIAO!

TheDuck

Entry Filed under: General Discussion